"which I will try to build & use nested loops in, when I can get it functioning"

Exactly the wrong way around! Think structure (overall program structure and data structure) first, then details. By the time you've written the details it is far too late to go back and rethink the structures.

For complicated projects it's often said "write the first version to throw away". It's only when the first version has been written that you have an idea of how you perhaps should have written it. Getting a better first cut is mostly a matter of experience.

A major red flag (code smell/stink) is variable names with index numbers in them. Whenever you find yourself doing that, change to using an array. For your current task however that just isn't an issue because you don't need to store the intermediate values at all. Consider:

Ada Lovelace for the palindrome
Albert Einstein for having smelly feet
Alfred Nobel for his contribution to battlefield science
Burkhard Heim for providing the missing link between science and mysticism
Claude Shannnon for riding a unicycle at night at MIT
Donald Knuth for being such a great organist
Edward Teller for being the template for Dr. Strangelove
Edwin Hubble for pretending to be a pipe-smoking English gentleman
Erwin Schrödinger for cruelty to cats
Hedy Lamarr for weaponizing pianos
Hugh Everett for immortality, especially for cats
Isaac Newton for his occult studies
Kikunae Ikeda for discovering the secrets of soy sauce
Larry Wall for his website
Louis Camille Maillard for discovering why steaks taste good
Marie Curie for the shiny stuff
Nikola Tesla for the cool cars
Paul Dirac for speaking one word per hour when socializing
Richard Feynman for his bongo skills
Robert Oppenheimer for his in-depth knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita
Rusi P Taleyarkhan for Cold Fusion
Sigmund Freud for his Ménage ā trois
Theodor W Adorno for his contribution to the reception of jazz
Wilhelm Röntgen for the foundations of body scanners
Yulii Borisovich Khariton for the Tsar Bomba
Other (please explain why)